We are pleased to announce a new book by Harvey Shapiro, A Momentary Glory: Last Poems. A celebration of Shapiro’s work will occur on Tuesday, September 30, at 7:30 PM, in the Rare Book Room of The Strand Book Store (828 Broadway at 12th Street, NYC). Read more here.
The distinguished poet Harvey Shapiro passed away on January 7, 2013. The poems in this book, many of them previously unpublished and discovered only after his death, are a great gift, and the final confirmation of his extraordinary talent. Edited by Shapiro’s literary executor, the poet and critic Norman Finkelstein, these last poems bear an unprecedented gravitas, and yet they are as supple, jazzy, and edgy as Shapiro’s earlier work. All the themes for which he is known are beautifully represented here. There are poems of his experiences in World War II, the erotic life, and of daily moments in Brooklyn and Manhattan, all in search of a worldly wisdom and grace that the poet calls “a momentary glory.” As Shapiro tells us, the poem “Is an Egyptian / ship of the dead, / everything required / for life stored / in its hold.” The book includes a introduction by the editor. An online reader’s companion is available at http://harveyshapiro.site.wesleyan.edu/.
For more details, click here.
Also available as an ebook—check with your favorite ebook retailer.
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Psalm
I am still on a rooftop in Brooklyn
on your holy day. The harbor is before me,
Governor’s Island, the Verrazano Bridge
and the Narrows. I keep in my head
what Rabbi Nachman said about the world
being a narrow bridge and that the important thing
is not to be afraid. So on this day
I bless my mother and father, that they be
not fearful where they wander. And I
ask you to bless them and before you
close your Book of Life, your Sefer Hachayim,
remember that I always praised your world
and your splendor and that my tongue
tried to say your name on Court Street in Brooklyn.
Take me safely through the Narrows to the sea.
